


praise the dawning

by rowan_reign



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mornings, Relationship Study, proof I can write fluff, waking up together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28031826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowan_reign/pseuds/rowan_reign
Summary: Raihan isn’t a morning person. Piers isn’t even a stay the night person.Until suddenly, they are.
Relationships: Kibana | Raihan/Nezu | Piers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 83





	praise the dawning

Raihan isn’t much of a morning person. 

Sure, he knows how to get up early, and after breakfast and a few cups of coffee he hits his normal enthusiastic stride, but actually cracking his eyelids first thing is always a struggle. He likes his sleep, and his body needs it; his mum always said it was because he was a growing boy, and at this point, he hopes to Arceus that the growing has stopped. If he gets any bigger, he’s going to have to start living in a cave somewhere, and there’s just absolutely no good selfie lighting in a place like that. He already had to have his mattress custom made, because most king size beds only barely accommodated his height, so while he was at it he went ahead and made it the most damn comfortable place in all of Galar. It’s not a shock that he doesn’t want to get up out of that comfort too soon. 

He’s also used to waking up in his bed alone.

Even when he didn’t lie down that way, it just seems to be the natural rhythm of things. He considers himself a laid-back enough guy to let it happen, even if there’s a part of him deep inside that is very, very much not laid back and has many things to say about it. 

At first, Piers would leave right after they were done. Catch his breath, maybe use the shower, but then he’d be pulling on boots and leather and be back out into the cold snapping air of the night. Vanishing with a click of the door behind him, the ghost of his monochrome hair burned into the back of Raihan’s lids, the echo of his voice in his ears. 

Raihan didn’t let it hurt him that Piers didn’t look back, because Piers wasn’t that kind of guy, and he could...understand, in a way. Needing distance, after being so up close and personal. He finds, in the unwinding of all Piers’ thorns, that he isn’t used to having anyone reach past that spiked, dangerous exterior to grasp at the shadowy parts of him and ask to hold. 

So he watches the show of him getting dressed, hair in a messy ponytail, lipstick smears wiped away, a leather jacket with the collar popped—all that armor. He gets it. Piers needs to protect himself, and as much as Raihan wishes it wasn’t so, maybe Piers thinks he’s one of the people he needs protecting from. 

Okay, so it stings a lot. But he reassures himself that Piers keeps coming back around, Piers keeps opening up the cavity of his ribs and showing Raihan all the things he seems to think are so ugly, the human wants and needs that are otherwise buried under a mountain of _I have to_ and if _I don’t, then who will?_

Raihan doesn’t mind being his solace, because it feels like the least he can do for someone who needs him, and when was the last time anyone really needed him? Liked him, sure. Wanted his picture. Thought he was hot, or a great trainer. Asked for his autograph. But _needed_ him? Piers is a first on that account, and Raihan keeps that secret hidden behind his teeth every time he offers up a welcoming smile when that familiar too-quick knock hits his door. 

Piers lets Raihan pull him apart for reasons he can’t fathom, but feels infinitely grateful for. Whispers words that would sound like gratitude on any other tongue, and Raihan takes all of them and tucks them up in his heart for later, because Piers can never know how much Raihan needs him back. 

Even in the unexpected _later_ that happens between them, Piers usually wakes up in the middle of the night. Raihan can’t count the number of times he’s seen those slim shoulders, the protrusions of his vertebrae catching moonlight as he slides out of bed, an abstraction of an abstraction. Piers has long since mastered the art of unrealness, and it’s so terribly fitting that he belongs to the shadows, because sometimes it feels like even looking at him too directly would make him vanish as fast as flicking on the lights. 

He never says anything, because Piers is the kind to run even further the second anyone tries to grip too tight. The “come back to bed, baby” dies on his lips like the spent cliche it is, and sometimes Piers is there in the morning, sipping coffee and staring out the window. 

So Raihan learns what kind he likes—medium roast, teases him for buying fancy creamer but adds it anyway, doesn’t like sweetener, looks like a fucking knockout in nothing but a ratty workout shirt and his hair all over the place, ink and milk. Piers always looks tired no matter how much he sleeps, but he murmurs _thanks for the coffee, mate_ each time when Raihan wakes up and shuffles into the kitchen on stiff joints, yawning and silently cursing the morning light. Piers is up early, and up late, and up at times when even Raihan could never manage it. Another remarkable thing about him is that he keeps going long after anyone else would have given it all up.

Nocturnal creature, or so Raihan supposes to himself, just to have something to suppose at all. 

He doesn’t have the guts to say _stick around, I don’t want you to go just yet,_ but Piers has started hanging around more and more anyway, and like taming a stray alley-cat, Raihan knows that leaving the door open for him to come and go is probably the best solution. 

Piers stays.

Raihan normally takes a picture of his breakfast, or himself, or both, for his social media accounts. It’s become a part of his morning routine since he’s not sure when, a little serotonin boost first thing in the morning to see all the likes coming in. After all, if he didn’t update, then surely people would think he was dead or something, right? It would mess up his metrics, and disappoint his fans. What else do people follow him for, if not to see him all the time?

Piers reaches across the breakfast table one morning, and lays a skinny hand over the screen gently. The dark green varnish on his middle nail is chipped, because it happens just about every time he plays guitar, unless he springs for gel polish. 

“Fuck a filter. Have breakfast with _me.”_

There’s something about the way he puts emphasis on that last word that has Raihan’s heart thundering in his chest, and he clicks the phone to the locked setting, placing it face-down on the table. It almost makes him squirm, until he looks into Piers’ eyes and sees warmth there, just a trace. 

“What do you want to do today?” He asks, worried that the silence is going on for too long, that Piers will get bored and tell him he can pick his phone back up if he’s not going to say anything.

“Already doin’ it,” he murmurs in response, and digs into his eggs with roasted tomatoes on the side. Extra pepper, Raihan remembers. 

That something in his chest stirs up again, and then settles, curling up in a way he’s never felt it do before. 

When Piers leaves, lately, he texts a ‘see you’ or ‘had to be at the Gym, Marnie needed me’. When Raihan responds with ‘good morning :3’, Piers just says ‘don’t make three-mouth at me’, and Raihan laughs himself all the way out of bed. Alone, but not lonely. 

But this particular morning, when he wakes, his usual irritation at his brain forcing his body to wakefulness is cut through by a highly _unusual_ sensation.

Cotton-puff hair brushes his upper lip, and a weight pins one of his arms in place, though not uncomfortably. He shifts, instinctive, and feels his legs tangled in something too firm to be his sheets.

_No way._

But when his eyes snap open, there’s Piers, still fast asleep.

The morning light gently scrubs away the ethereal beauty bestowed by nighttime; Piers was always a poetic sonofabitch once the sun went down. 

Now he has sleep built up in the corners of his eyes, a fleck of black mascara on one cheek, and his lips are parted just a sliver as he breathes the deep, steady breaths of slumber. His hair is everywhere, a riot in black and white, tangling around his face and running down his shoulders. He’ll be brushing it out and cursing, later. Sunlight is already beginning to stream in through the crack in Raihan’s curtains, and yet the room is still dark enough to be warm, welcoming. The digital alarm clock is on the nightstand behind him, and Raihan doesn’t think he has it in him to peel away from Piers to check the time.

Maybe it ought to be weird, to wake up with someone else in his bed. If he’d thought about it before all of _this,_ it probably would have been wholly unappealing; Raihan isn’t too keen on sharing up-close-and-personal space, no matter how much he tries to project a friendly image. Letting himself have that buffer zone between himself and other people has always been crucial to his general sanity, for more reasons than one. But Piers isn’t just _people._ It’s both surprising and not, then, to find just how natural it feels to wake up wrapped around another warm body, eyes scanning every tiny detail. Drinking in this moment for everything it represents, and all the things he hadn’t wanted to admit that he was waiting for.

The hollows under Piers’ eyes seem less pronounced now, and Raihan even spots a freckle right on the very bridge of his nose. A tiny dip of color on his otherwise deathly pallor. His usually razor-sharp eyebrows are mussed, and Raihan sees the black stubble growing in along his jawline. 

Piers is made human by morning light, who knew.

For a long minute, Raihan just lies there, going over all the little details and—he hesitates to call them flaws, or imperfections, so he settles on ‘humanisms’ instead—the bump in his nose from having it broken, the dull glint of his piercings, the harsh sigh of some breaths that never quite amounts to a snore. He smells sweet and faded, like jasmine with a hint of cigarette smoke behind it. Skin. Self. It makes his heart drum, even when Piers moves against him, as though complaining about the few short movements his personal space heater has made away from him. Seeking Raihan out with his eyes closed. 

Love is complicated, and love is insultingly simple. Two hands, breaths in and out, morning light, folded laundry, passionate kissing, searching for the right words, the going and the staying. Usually, all they do in bed is directly aimed at mutual satisfaction, or resting and regrouping thereafter. This feels vulnerable in an entirely different way; it’s a delicate parody of the way they normally grapple with one another, all harsh kisses and needy touches. He realizes with a start that one of Piers’ legs is hooked around his own, as though even in sleep he’s unwilling to let go. More honest than when he’s awake, that’s for certain. 

At least he’s not a blanket hog. Raihan hates waking up chilly. Instead, the two of them are tangled comfortably around each other, the duvet tucked up under one of Piers’ arms as he rests, a single slim ankle kicked out under one corner. It feels...content. Normal. Even when it isn’t, being with Piers feels easy.

Raihan bends forward and brushes his lips against Piers’ forehead, feeling the paper thinness of skin over the plate of skull and curve of brow-bone. 

Then he eases his own humanisms (needs to brush his teeth before the morning breath really sets in, the old scar on his left leg is tight, his stomach is growling) out of the sheets and towards the kitchen.

Maybe this morning, he’ll make the coffee.


End file.
